Forested Waters
by Zingacat
Summary: A young thief boy and his daemon are sucked into another world, with no idea of where they are. Some one is making windows again, but so far no Specters have been seen. Is there a new way into other worlds, or will the consequences be even worse?
1. Rain, Blood, Flight

**Chapter One**

_Rain, Blood, Flight_

* * *

A mist of rain was falling in the unnamed town, darkening the dank evening. Outlines were blurred, hazy, in the spitting drizzle. Cold fingers of rain painted the world in faceted dewdrops, each beautiful in its icy perfection. No stars shone through the thick bank of clouds swathing the sky, and the only noise was the soft flutter of wings as a sparrow settled her self more deeply in her nest. In this night of mist, a young boy crouched against a mud daubed wall, huddled in the folds of a thin cloak. A large, russet dog lay curled around his side, warming him. A crash from a nearby house rang out eerily in the muffled silence. Both dog and boy jumped up, the cloak falling forgotten at their feet.

"Where is that no good son of donkey! I'll flay 'im alive when I catch the miscreant. Where are you boy?" Slurred with drink, the voice preceded a shabbily dressed man, who stepped woozily out onto the small porch of a grimy whitewashed house. He slammed the door behind him, rattling the windows in their frames. A wasp buzzed angrily around his head, echoing the man's words in a high, peevish voice.

"Son of a donkey! Flay him alive! Where are you boy!" She whined petulantly, "I'll sting him to death my self for making me come out in the rain."

The boy instantly darted into the shadows, the dog at his feet leaping into his arms as a white-and-ginger furred cat. She glared evilly at the man and his daemon, yellow eyes slitted in hate. Hugging her close to his thin chest, the boy slowly edged around the corner of the closest house, hardly daring to breathe.

The inebriated man on the porch struck his fist against the wall in fury. The bottle clasped in his fingers shattered, falling in a muted dazzle of shards. Blood welled from a slash on his hand, dripping poppy red to the floor. Howling in pain and drunken rage, the man clutched his wrist and glared murder at the night. Then he turned and stomped back into the house, his daemon looping circles above his head.

Shaking with barely suppressed sobs of anger, fear, hatred, the boy sank to his knees on the rain-drenched ground. His daemon crawled out of his arms, fox-furred, and licked his hands. Though her voice cracked and shook, she soothed her boy in hushed whispers.

"Easy, easy Grake. It's all right, dear heart, he's gone. Shhh, shhhh, quiet. We're all right. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone, gone." She mumbled these words over and over, rubbing against Grake, licking his hands, his face, whining softly. The boy gathered her upin his arms, buried his head in her russet fur, and wept.

When the racking sobs quieted, he lifted face and wiped his eyes, which were red from crying. "Is he really gone, Kanling? Is he?"

"Yes Grake, he's really gone. And it's time we were gone too." She put her paws on his shoulder, and stared him straight in the eye. "We can't live like this. Skulking in corners, running away at night to avoid a beating. We should leave. Everything's ready."

Grake sniffed miserably. "I know, Kanling, I really do. But-this place," He gestured helplessly. "We used to be happy here. What changed it all? What tore it all apart?"

"Mother left. Father started beating us. You know why, you just don't want to admit it." Kanling squinted menacingly at him, and nipped his ear. "Now, we need to go. We've put it off too long."

"All right." Grake laughed at the stubbornness of his daemon. "Let's go get the cloak back though. We might need it." So the pair scuttled back to the wall where they had huddled just a little while ago. The cloak lay where they had left it, a forlorn dark bundle in the night. Drenched with wet coldness, the material was heavy, and streaked with mud. Grake grimaced at the state of it, but shrugged it on anyway.

Kanling led the way on silent feet, fox eyes piercing the misty gloom about them. They paused only briefly at the edge of the unnamed town, where under a hedge a small bag of salted meat, stale bread, and dried fruit lay upon the soggy ground. They crept into the fields only until they were out of earshot of the village. There Kanling changed into a magnificent black horse, who knelt and let Grake scramble onto her back. With fingers twined tightly in his daemon's mane, the pair galloped into the night, and soon dissolved into the darkness.


	2. The Wrath of the Storm

The darkness was burned away in a brilliant blaze of flame as lightning split the heavens. What had started a drizzle had unleashed itself into a mighty storm, the very sky shaking under the tumultuous raging blows. Thunder grabbed the air with a thousand claws and rent it to pieces with a scream that seemed to break the earth and scatter the pieces into dark clouds of nothingness. Through this tempest rode Grake, his daemon pounding through the muddy trenches of the road. Her breath broke in huge panting gasps upon the storm, seeming to bellow from her lungs like the wind that beat her sides. Mud slicked her legs and barrel, and rain blinded her to the storm. Grake held on with all his strength, but his tired, wet fingers were slipping.

"Kanling!" He screamed, both voice and mind desperate to break through the howling that raged around them. "I can't hold on! I'm going to fall!" Panic broke his voice into a little boy's screech.

Kanling heard, but could not answer, the wind whipping the words from her mouth before she could speak them. She tried to slow the frantic rush of their flight, but the road slipped downward into a gully, and the mud sucked her legs onward. To try and stop was to slide, and trip, and fall, down, down, down into the river that frothed below.

Lightning ripped the sky again, illuminating the rain-beaten world. Grake clung to Kanling with all his might, but they had galloped for hours, and his muscles were frozen. His legs cramped as he tried to squeeze tighter against his daemon's sides. With a sense of dread, he felt himself sliding, slowly, oh so slowly, over the back of her rump. Fingers scrabbled wildly to clasp tighter to the black mane, but the strands flew out of his grasp like inky snakes.

"Kanling!" He screamed piteously, as he slipped side ways off her back. He landed with a thud, a crack, and a moan. His right arm was snapped, the bone sticking out jaggedly from the bloody skin. But the pain in his chest was worse, the twisting, jerking, hot knives that dug and tore at his heart like a rabid beast. He clutched his good arm to his chest, screaming and screaming loud enough to wake the dead.

The black horse tripped, stumbled, almost fell. The same pain wrenched her foreleg; the same pain ripped her heart. With out a moments thought she was a griffin, beating her way back to her boy. Giant auburn wings whipped the already crazed wind into a frenzy, which rushed away her cries of pain as if they offended this tortured night. Finally Kanling was there, next to Grake, and the horrible, indescribable agony of the hearts was over. But blood still pulsed out of the boy's broken arm, staining the rock where he had landed as he wept weakly.

Kanling was a panther, licking and licking the wound, cleaning away the blood despite Grake's moans of protest. Then she was a monkey, clever paws ripping his shirt, binding up the wound, though she winced as much as he did. Finally, Kanling made one last change, becoming a griffin again. She huddled down beside him, warming his still figure, and folded a wing over him, protecting him from the raging elements.


	3. A Chance Meeting

**Chapter One**

_A Chance Meeting_

* * *

Dawn broke warm and wet, the world seeming to sparkle from the thousand myriad drops scattered about like broken jewels. A griffin, soaked through and shivering, slept beside a boy who huddled close to her sodden feathers. The bandage around his arm was stained purest red, and thin trickles of dried blood traced his skin down to his fingertips.

A soft breeze, almost a mockery after the fierce gales of the night before, wound its way about the sleepers. The boy shuddered, the griffin yawned, and they both awoke.

Grake sat up and gasped with pain. The movement broke the scab and fresh blood dribbled down his wrist. Kanling squawked in sympathy. She put a paw on his shoulder, forcing him back down to the ground. Her cruel beak gently ripped another strip from his shirt, which was little better than a rag now. Nimble fingered, monkey-Kanling replaced the old bandage with the new, tying it firm. Grake cried out as the cloth tightened, eyes closed and teeth set.

"I know it hurts Grake, I know." Kanling soothed, "I can feel it too. But it must be done or you will bleed to death."

Grake nodded his head in understanding. "Are we away?"

"Aye, indeed we are. But we best find a town and get your arm set. It's broke bad."

"I noticed." The boy smiled slightly, before the pain set him wincing again. Kanling, horse formed, licked his forehead, then knelt beside him.

"Climb aboard. We had best be off." With a grunt of pain, the boy grasped his daemon's mane, and with not a little difficulty, hauled his protesting body onto her broad back. Every muscle ached, from the wild ride, from the fall, from the loss of blood. Kanling got to her feet as gently as possible, and walked off down the still muddy road, across the bridge over the still frothing river, and into the rain soaked horizon.

Noon came and went, the bright sun bathing the world in its warmth, but there was still no sign of a town. Kanling limped across muddy fields, through flooded pastures long deserted, too tired and pain-wracked to be bothered by the half wild cows that snorted and ran at the sight of her. Grake lay in a stupor against her side, his breathing shallow and ragged. His wound had started bleeding again, and he moaned whenever the road grew rough and his arm bouncedupon his daemon's withers. Both of their eyes were glazed with pain and fatigue, and hunger, though neither of them recognized it. The small pack of food had been lost in the night's wild scramble.

So neither of them noticed when the curvingdirt path turned to gravel,whenthe forgotten and downtrodden pastures became bright and well-groomed paddocks, fat horses and cows and sheep grazing contentedly on the sweet grass.

Grake woke from his half daze with a start. His grip on Kanlings mane was slack, and he found himself sliding down her side towards the ground. Blood oozed along his fingers, making them sticky and slick.Before he could right himself, a loud, rattling contraption roared its way along the road toward the pair. Kanling jumped sideways off the road as the approachingthing... wound its way nearer to them, crashing along at an alarming speed. That one jump was all that was needed to send Grake tumbling again to the ground. Pain collided through him as helanded on his bad arm, and he screamed in agony. It was too intense. He rolled to one side and retched. This accomplished him nothing but aburning pain in his stomach. He moaned as he lay there, panting.

The man in the car screechedto a stop and leapt from his seat. He wasa tall, imposing figure, with a square jaw and handsome dark hair. He had been utterly surprised at seeing a boy riding a horse with no saddle or bridle down this small country lane. Either he was a magnificent rider, or...the thought popped unbiddeninto his head. But no, that was impossible. Shrugging away his doubts, he hurried over to the boy's side.

It was obvious that he was injured, his right arm was drenched in blood and he lay quitestill. Flashing black hooves stopped the man from approaching any closer. The horse pinned its ears back, teeth bared, and snorted outraged defiance at him. The man turned and spokesoothingly to the black beast, hand outstretched invitingly. The horse shied away from his touch, and again the nagging doubt tugged at his mind. Moving slowly, so as not to alarm the equine any further, he knelt down by the boy.

"Easy lad. I'm not going to hurt you."The man lifted the boy's shoulders gently into his lap, the horse prancing about him nervously. "What's your name, son?"

"G-Grake, sir." Grake whispered, eyes wide with fear.

"No need to be afraid Grake, I won't hurt you, I promise."

"Kanling thinks you might."

"Is Kanling the horse?" The man asked softly, nerves on edge.

Grake nodded slightly. "She says we can't trust you. You ain't got a daemon."

The man gasped with shock. The little nagging thoughts at the back of his mind were accurate. But-but, it was impossible!Completely impossible.

Grake flinched away from the man's touch. "Don't worry, Grake," The man said, then turned to look at the horse, "Kanling. I do have a daemon." And at his words a large, shadow colored cat stepped delicately out of the still humming car by the road.

The boy relaxedvisably, andthe horse stopped her nervous prancing. Dog-formed, Kanling crawled toGrake's side, licking his cheek encouragingly. Then she turned to the man. "Who are you?" she asked suspiciously.

"I?" Echoed the dark haired man. "I am Will Parry."


End file.
